Mary’s Minute
“If you can’t change your
mind, why have one?”
~ Edward de Bono
It is pretty neat that as
humans we have the capacity to think for ourselves in a fluid way. My son, Bill, recently shared a story that
really made me think. He was in a
discussion about finding sources to support a thesis. Someone posed the question, “What do you do
if you can’t find data to support your thesis?”
Bill replied, “Change your mind.”
He said that his response was received with some blank stares. Changing our mindset is not always easy, and
as much as we are created as thinking beings, we are also creatures of
habit. It isn’t easy to change a
long-held belief or practice.
We are learning a lot
about brain research, and how our actions as adults affect children. We know that adverse conditions that we often
refer to as trauma, physically change the wiring of children’s brains. We also know through research that these
changes can be reversed. This all sounds
great, and makes perfect sense, but the challenge comes when the strategies to
help kids go against practices that we have long held. We can think and learn, but at the end of the
day we are still creatures of habit and tend to do things the way we always
have.
For Bill it is a simple
matter of evidence. He thinks
scientifically, so if the evidence supports a belief change, he can change his
mind. Some of us are not as analytical
in how we handle our lives, but I still think we can learn from him. The key is
that we think after all, why have a mind if we can’t change it?
Have a great week!
Mary
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